Why don't I find president Obama's push for an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement based on 1967 borders to be "historic," as Goldy writes below?

Simple: This map.

Or, really, any other map showing Israel's borders before 1967's Six Day War. Just Google around, you'll find plenty of these maps. And what you'll see is a 1967 map that looks pretty much exactly like the map you see of Israel and the Palestinian territories right now, in 2011; pretty much exactly like the map that everyone (including U.S. policy makers, for some time now) want as the final map; pretty much exactly what most non-policy-making people expect the lines in that part of the Middle East will look like when—if—this is all over.

Yes, it's probably true that no U.S. president has explicitly used the words "1967 lines" before. But that's essentially what many U.S. presidents, including Obama, have been pushing for going back many years.

Here's another statement from Obama's speech that is not exactly new, but that I think may be more important for the parties involved to pay attention to than the "1967 lines" bit:

The international community is tired of an endless process that never produces an outcome.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

And it's not in the interest of either side to exhaust the patience of their international supporters.